


High Street

by ymorton



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:11:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ymorton/pseuds/ymorton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone requested a nick and harry fight with makeup sex! i got kinda close to that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	High Street

**Author's Note:**

> fake!!! i hope harry never dislocates ANY of his lovely body parts.
> 
> ihavea1dbloghelp.tumblr.com

"It’ll be fine," Harry says before, tugging at the front of Nick’s jacket and kissing the side of his mouth. "S’just London. I’ll have- fine, I’ll have ‘em follow me in a car. Happy?" 

"It’s not just London, it’s Oxford Street. And it’s two weeks before bloody Christmas, we’ll be mobbed. This is stupid, Haz, we should go to Bond." 

"It’s fine," Harry repeats stubbornly. "I just want to go shopping in a department store, like old days. For an hour or two." 

Nick relents. Only later does he regret how easy he was. Harry was all wrapped up in coat and scarf, biting his full bottom lip and blinking at Nick appeasingly. 

Stupid. Nick’s a sucker for a pretty face. 

—

It’s alright for a half hour or so - they get dropped off, and Harry drags Nick into Selfridges - not physically, of course, because they’re already getting papped, but he says, all breathless and excited, “C’mon,  _c’mon_.” 

They take refuge in the jewelry section - “Gonna get something for my mum,” Harry says, running his fingers over the top of a glass case. “Do you think she likes diamonds?” 

"Who doesn’t," Nick murmurs, picking up a heavy gold watch from its display on the countertop. "This is a treat, in’t it?" 

Harry looks up. “It’s nice.” 

Nick lies it against his wrist, cocks his head. “For my dad, maybe.”

"Yeah, Pete might like it," Harry says, and then, "Miss? Could I see the necklace?" 

The shopwoman turns around - a fetching little thing with her dark hair smoothed back in a tight bun - and staggers backward. 

"Oh!" she says, eyes widening. "You!" 

Nick laughs to himself and turns away, and Harry makes small talk, signs an autograph on an old receipt she fumbles out of the register, then says, “The necklace, please?” 

"Oh god, yeah, sorry," she stammers. She lifts it out of the case, and Harry touches it delicately, fingering the gold chain. 

"Who’s it for?" she says, sounding hopeful. 

"My mum," Harry murmurs, nodding Nick over to him, and she  _aww_ s. “What do you think? Think she’ll like it?” 

"Hi Grimmy," the woman says, voice still shaking, and Nick spares her a smile. 

"Hiya. Haz, I think it’s nice. She’ll love it." 

He’s anxious, a bit, because it’s still quiet in the secluded jewelry section but Nick can only imagine the furor growing outside. It feels creepy almost, like they’re in that part of a zombie film where they seem utterly safe and then they look out the window and the back lawn’s crawling with half-decomposed bodies. 

"Eh, I don’t know," Harry says. "S’maybe a bit flashy. Have you got a smaller gem by any chance?" 

"Absolutely," she says, waving him down the counter, and Nick looks up. There are three girls standing outside the jewelry section, and they look as if they’re still in shock but that won’t last. Their phones are trembling in their little sweaty pre-teen palms.  _The zombies will rise_ , Nick thinks. 

"Harry," he says. "How ‘bout we call the car?" 

"Don’t be stupid, I want to get a new jacket." Harry considers another necklace, then hands it to the shopwoman and says, "Mind wrapping it up?"

"We’ll go to Bond Street, Hazza," Nick hisses into his ear. The woman is struggling to wrap the necklace, eyes darting from Nick to Harry and back again. "It’s going to be mad here in a minute." 

"I’m fine," Harry says firmly, and Nick steps away from him with a muttered curse. Harry drives him absolutely mad when he gets like this - tries to pretend he’s normal, that he can do things like everyone else. It’s not bloody true. The normal rules of human life don’t apply to Harry Styles, and sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s awful. 

Harry just soldiers on through it all, acting like he’s some nobody from Cheshire instead of one of the most recognized faces on the entire bloody planet. 

It’s endearing at times. Other times it makes Nick want to tear his hair out. 

He turns back, and Harry is slipping his black AmEx into his wallet, picking up the tiny gift bag. 

"Harry, we’re going," Nick says, trying to sound calm. 

"Nick, we’re not," Harry says just as calmly. The woman behind the counter is texting frantically - or tweeting, maybe. Shit. 

"Harry!" the girls say shyly as Nick and Harry make their way out of the section. "Do you mind taking a picture, Harry?" 

"Of course," Harry says, and Nick takes a step back, rubbing a palm over his face. 

"Happy Christmas," they chorus when they’ve all done individual photos with him, and he smiles, says, "Aww, you too, have a good holiday." 

Nick can  _feel_ the smug grin on Harry’s face as he joins him again. 

"See, wasn’t so bad, was it," he says, pleased with himself. 

"I just think we should call the car. She was tweetin’, the woman behind the counter, people’ll be here in a minute." 

"She was nice," Harry says, absently. 

"That’s not the-" Nick breaks off, tries to breathe deeply. "I just think it’s going to be more trouble than its worth. Everyone’s out today." 

Harry turns to him on the escalator down to the first floor, looking up at him from two steps down. The people going up next to him catch sight of him and say, hushed - “That’s Harry Styles!” Harry ignores them. 

"You worry too much," he says fondly, and Nick says, dread rising in his stomach, "Do I?" 

He points past Harry down the escalator. 

The first floor is filled. 

Not just - filled. Packed like sardines. Hundreds of people, and when they see who it is a scream rises up. 

"Oh hell," Nick says, briefly wondering if they can make a run for it up the downward-moving escalator. He’d probably trip and fall the rest of the way down in front of a thousand camera phones. 

Harry’s gone stiff in front of him, and Nick puts a hand on his back before he realizes what he’s doing and yanks it away. 

"Harry?" 

"Just - let’s get outside," Harry says, sounding flat and numb and vaguely terrified. 

"We can call security-" 

"Let’s get outside, Nick." He looks up at Nick, and Nick nearly shudders at the look at his face- pure concentrated popstar, a smooth, slick professionalism, eyes gone steely and mouth already curved up in an artificial smile. For the next however-long-it-takes, Harry will have to be both endlessly compassionate and completely ruthless, picking and choosing who to talk to, who to take a photo with, which random objects to sign. He’ll have people screaming his name, screaming questions, cameras going off in his face. People  _everywhere_. 

Nick loses all the urge to say  _I told you so_. 

"Alright, outside," he says, his chest aching with protectiveness, and then it hits- they’re off, and they’re in the mob. 

Harry smiles and smiles and smiles and Nick follows behind, indulging the occasional photo request, if only because Harry’s doing ten times as many as him and Nick feels like a lazy arsehole. 

"Thank you, yeah, thanks," Harry’s been saying, and on one of the words, through the screaming, Nick hears his voice crack with overuse. It makes his stomach twinge with sympathy and anger. 

"We’re going outside," he hisses into Harry’s ear. "Now." 

Harry nods, ducks his head and starts pushing through the crowd. That only sets them off more. People are grabbing at bits of Harry, any bit they can reach - his scarf, his ear, his coat, his arms - people are taking literal  _fistfuls_  of his hair. Nick puts his head down and elbows off some girl who’s about to dig her fingernails into Harry’s neck, shoves Harry forward by the small of his back, and then they’re through the door, and Harry’s security guard is right there, looking huge and delightfully solid, saying, “This way, Mr. Styles. This way.” 

In another minute they’re in the car, and Nick’s hands won’t stop shaking. It’s stupid, he should be used to it by now. Being mates with Harry Styles is an odd beast. Secretly fucking Harry Styles is even odder (though it comes with its own expansive set of rewards). He clenches his hand into a fist to keep it still, says, “You alright?” 

"Think so," Harry says, sounding more slurred than usual, like he’s dazed and drowsy. "Except I don’t think that’s supposed to be like that." 

"What?" Nick says, glancing over at him, and then he screams. 

Harry’s forearm is sticking out from his elbow joint at an unnatural, grotesque angle. The wrong way. The wrong direction. It’s very very very wrong. 

Nick nearly throws up. 

"Jesus Christ!" he yells, and then into the front seat- "Take him to the bloody hospital, his arm’s broke or summat!" 

Harry is drawing in shaky breaths through his mouth, staring down at his twisted arm. 

"Shit," he says. "Shit." 

Nick’s blood is pumping with adrenaline. “Come on,” he says, banging the back of the passenger’s seat, the security guard staring wide-eyed into the backseat and looking more like a disgusted toddler than an actual adult professional. “He’s really really hurt, it’s really gross, please - oh god, Haz, are you alright, does it hurt?” 

Harry nods, his eyes filling up with tears. “Shit,” he repeats, like a broken record. “Oh. Ni-ick. Shit.” 

"I know, darling," Nick says, not wanting to touch him, hurt him more. The car goes over a bump and Harry sobs out in pain. "Oh bleeding fuck. It’s going to be alright, I promise, we’ll get you to the hospital, get you sorted." 

Harry is sobbing quietly, red-faced and miserable, and Nick hits the side of the car with his fist, feeling helpless. “I promise, Haz, we’ll get there-“

He’s half-crying himself at this point, eyes welling up. “It’s alright, Haz, I promise,” he says thickly, and Harry whimpers and then goes silent, biting his bottom lip the rest of the way to the hospital, cradling his hurt arm with his well one.

It’s all such an awful mess, but they make it to a doctor, in a private room at the Princess Grace, and Nick watches in absolute horror as the doctor slips Harry a painkiller and then snaps his forearm back into the socket. It was dislocated, not broken, apparently. Nick’s pretty sure. His brain went all fuzzy white noise once Harry’s bloody  _bones started cracking together_. 

Harry’s head is lolling on his neck and he looks completely gone with pain. 

"Bleeding hell!" Nick yelps, hovering over them, as the doctor shifts Harry’s forearm with both of her hands. "That seems unprofessional! What are we, in Afghanistan?? That doesn’t seem doctorly!" 

"Grimmy, shh," Harry mumbles, thick with the drugs. 

"I’m just saying, it- what if you snapped it back wrong or something? What if he’s gonna have a wrong-facing wrist for the rest of his life-" 

"Please be quiet while I work," the doctor snaps, giving him a dark-eyed glare. "If you have a problem with that, you can wait outside." 

Nick snaps his mouth shut, watching with dread, but the worst seems to be over. 

"We’ll need to put him in a splint," the doctor says, and a nurse runs off. "And do a few X-rays." 

Harry nods, and Nick touches his head, which is falling nearly to his shoulder. 

"You alright?" he says, stroking Harry’s curls. 

"Feel okay," Harry mumbles. He turns his face into Nick’s palm, nuzzles like a cat. "I feel floaty. Like a balloon. Nick, I’m a balloon." 

"Let’s get you into the room for X-rays," the doctor says firmly, giving Nick a pointed look, and Nick lifts his hand from Harry’s head, stares helplessly after them as they leave. 

—

Harry’s gone for a good half hour, and when he comes back he’s smiling dopily and being pushed in a wheelchair. 

"If you don’t mind," the nurse pushing him says, her voice quavering. "If I could just get an autograph, maybe-" 

"Sure, of course," Harry slurs, sticking out his good arm for paper and pen, and Nick says, grabbing the chair from her, "Absolutely not. No." 

She glares at him as he wheels Harry inside the private room again, and Harry says, belatedly, “Heyyyy.” 

Nick’s blood is boiling. He feels like he’s going to vomit or cry or do something completely stupid, so he settles for pacing about the small, blessedly empty room. Harry is half-knocked-out in front of him, watching him lazily, almost amused. 

"I  _told_ you,” Nick spits out, noticing absently that his hands are shaking again. “I told you, and it all ended up exactly like I said.” 

"I’m fine," Harry says, smiling, high as a fucking kite, and Nick swallows back a stupid, angry sob and says hotly, "No you’re not, you fucking idiot." 

Harry looks up at him, face going wide and sad. 

"Hey," he says, hurt. "Hey." 

"You make me so  _mad_ ,” Nick bites out, scrubbing a palm over his face and keeping it there, covering his eyes. “You just - if you listened, if you’d just - you’re not normal, Harry. You get that, right? You’re not normal, you can’t just shop on bloody high street like a  _fucking normal person_. This is never going to be normal.” 

He stops because he’s going to cry. 

There’s a silence, and when Nick opens his eyes again Harry is biting his bottom lip, his face so open and tragic Nick thinks his heart might break. His eyes are wet. Oh fucking, fucking fuck. 

"Harry," Nick says, his voice breaking, the guilt rushing in. "Harry-" 

"Harry!" says another voice, and they both look up to see Harry’s manager, pale and tight-faced. "Oh god. You alright, darling? What happened?" 

Harry doesn’t say anything. Drops his head, starts playing about with his hospital bracelet, and Nick turns his face away and feels a tear drop hot onto his cheek. He’s such an idiot. He’s an arsehole and an idiot. 

He swipes it away and says, “I’ll leave you, then,” trying to sound composed. 

Harry doesn’t say anything when Nick walks out. 

—

The next day Nick texts him - after chewing at his fingernails for a half hour straight-  _hope you’re feeling better x_

Harry doesn’t respond. 

The  _next_  day, Nick’s a bloody wreck, and the whole world is buzzing about Harry Styles and his dislocated elbow. At work he fumbles over his links, and when he’s driving home he keeps going over the worst of them in his head, gnawing at them until they’re raw little wounds. He was  _shit_ , today. 

Nick absolutely hates being shit. 

When he steps inside he throws his jacket down, mutters, “Fuck,” and a voice says, “Nick?” 

"Christ!" he gasps, taking a step back. 

It’s just Harry, though. He’s in Nick’s foyer, wearing a t-shirt and jeans with his hurt arm up in a painful-looking sling that keeps it bent at a ninety-degree angle. 

"Scared me," Nick says, feeling - defensive, stupid. Feeling, still, like such an arsehole. 

"Sorry," Harry says, quietly. "Just. Uh, thought I’d come by." 

"How’s it feeling?" Nick nods at him. "The arm, I mean. Looks alright." 

Harry looks down at it and shrugs. “Gonna be a bit, but it’ll be - okay. Just glad it didn’t happen during tour.” 

Nick laughs, harshly. Of course that’s what Harry says. Of course Harry would only bloody care about inconveniencing other people, not about his own health. 

Harry takes a step backward, scrubs his working hand through his hair. 

"I just - I wanted to talk," he says, chewing his bottom lip. 

Something heavy and cold drops in Nick’s stomach. 

"Alright," he says, swallowing. "Um. Let me just set my bag down." 

Harry’s still lingering by the door when Nick comes back from the kitchen, wiping his palms nervously on his jeans. 

"Um," Harry says. "So. Just wanted to say I’m sorry, for the other day. Everything getting a bit crazy." 

Nick’s throat tightens. 

"That wasn’t your fault," he says, and Harry looks up at him with a tight smile. 

"Was, though," he says. "Considering I’m the one who chose to do all this. Stuff. So. I just - I wanted to." He lets out a frustrated breath. "If you don’t want to - do this. Because it’s all so - because it’s a lot. I understand. I know it’s not easy." 

Nick’s stopped breathing. 

"I mean, with the - keeping it quiet, and then all the, um, the people," Harry says, sounding miserable. "It’s not fair to you. You deserve someone-" 

"I deserve someone what?" Nick asks, stepping towards him. "What? Better? There’s no one. Someone I fancy more? No one. Someone easier? I don’t care about that,  _Haz_ , god, I- I don’t care about that.” 

"It’s alright if you do," Harry says stubbornly.

"Stop it," Nick says, laughing full-throated, because here he was, thinking Harry was here to chew him out, when really  _Harry_ feels bad. God, what did he do to deserve this terrible angel of a popstar? “Stop. There’s no one else I want, and I don’t - God, Harry, if I cared about your legions of screaming fans I wouldn’t’ve become mates with you in the first place. I don’t  _care_.” 

He cups Harry’s jaw with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he says, because it’s been eating away at him. “For what I said at the hospital.” 

"It’s fine," Harry mumbles, edging closer. 

"No, I was an arse." Nick strokes a thumb over Harry’s cheekbone. "I yelled at you. While you were on bloody  _pain medication_  for a dislocated elbow. I’m the worst person to ever exist, essentially.” 

"Stop," Harry says, but he’s laughing, and he leans easily into a kiss. 

Nick’s fine with it being just that- a kiss, maybe a cuddle on the sofa while he fusses over Harry’s arm and brings him whatever he wants, but Harry has other plans. He pushes Nick up against his front door, snogs him shamelessly, his hurt arm held out awkwardly and his other hand curled around the back of Nick’s neck. 

"Mm," he hums after sucking long and wet at Nick’s tongue. Nick opens his eyes, dazed. "I want you to fuck me." 

"Jesus," Nick breathes, reverent even now, when he’s fucked Harry in every position either of them could imagine. It still feels mental to hear those words. Harry’s grinning at him like he knows what Nick’s thinking.

"C’mon," he says, dipping in for another soft, short kiss. "Be gentle, I’m injured." 

"Oh," Nick breathes with a wince. "Should we not?" 

"I was joking." Harry pouts. "Yes. I’m fine, we’ll just be careful." 

—

Nick takes Harry into his bedroom and is very, very careful. 

Harry lies on his back and cradles his arm against his chest and makes the softest gasp when Nick kneels between his thighs and puts one lube-slick finger inside him. 

"S’alright?" Nick says, kissing the inside of Harry’s knee, warm skin. 

"Good," Harry says, hoarse already. "God, it’s been forever.  _More_.” 

"Been two days, you harlot," Nick mutters, amused, but he obliges him. 

Harry gets loud near the end, which is always one of Nick’s very favorite things. He groans ragged and loud in his throat, asks for his orgasm, gasps - “Nick. Nick let me- Nick, god, let me come -” and Nick gives him a hand with it, jerks him off while Harry kisses his mouth all over, wet and eager, the slick slip of his tongue and the hot clench of his arse sending Nick spiraling, rutting desperately inside him as he comes hard. 

Harry follows a moment later, sobs out, his back arching and eyes fluttering shut, and Nick takes a moment to take it all in. Harry with his lovely pink lips and his flushed skin, the sweat beading in his collarbone. Lax and satisfied from having Nick’s cock inside him, his hair mussed wildly about his face. 

"God you’re perfect," Nick says, and it comes out strained and breathless and he regrets it immediately afterwards. It’s true, of course, but he’s nearly thirty bloody years old, he should know it’s not wise to put all your cards on the table like that. 

Harry dimples up at him, kisses the end of his nose. 

"Not  _perfect,_ " he says, licking his lips. "My elbow’s dislocated."  

"Oh you twat," Nick laughs, and Harry grins and pulls him down into another kiss.


End file.
